Welcome to the forum,
Bottle Opener!
Steve does not interact much with the top players, except with some old timers. But I have not seen him get together with the spintop crowd since nats 2005 when we threw large tops together at Lucky's. On the other hand, Felix was very interested in what we were doing and said he wants to get back into tops. He drove with his two young sons from Germany, were he is stationed.
Talking about old timers, it was striking the lack of "white hair" in Prague. Except for Dale and Val, all the old demonstrators and the senior players/organizers that you generally saw at US nats and previous world contests, were missing. In fact, there were very few people around older than me
It was funny that when I got out of stage the announcer asked me how old I was and seemed surprised I could still play. I wish I had had time to finish the routine as I wanted, by jumping the top
I finally saw the videos of the routines (the broadcasted version). Half of my drops happened when I was doing simply rcs or switching between tricks. I think the reason was that I was thinking and trying to decide my next trick. After the first couple of misses I got away from the order I had planned, tried to play safe the next few moves and then improvised the order, what is not advisable. And I missed the pirouette two times in a row, when it is a trick that is pretty reliable for me. Will I freestyle again? I was thinking no, but now I feel like I may want to redo the routine next year with more practice . . . We'll see.
Jan's routine was pretty smooth; I liked it and I am surprised that I had a higher score. The Cometa demonstrators in general have so ingrained in them to start from a freshly wrapped top that they could not stop winding during the freestyle, even though I warned them against it. I saw Marietta practice and the nerves got hold of her on stage. I am still amazed that Jakub pulled a vortex in his routine, wow! I think he also did a
let-go-one-hand sun (I forgot the name Salvador gave them). Daniel did some difficult an original tricks, like the under the leg neckties combo. He dropped more than Tyler but I think the scores should have been closer.
